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Last night, after engaging in some shenanigans out at the local bar [some friends and I were replicating the “parkour” they were doing on The Office a few episodes ago, which for those who don’t know entails mainly of jumping on things, spinning around, and yelling “PARKOUR!”] some of us ended up back at someone’s house to watch a movie.

Fake parkour, as it turns out, is rather exhausting [I can’t even imagine what the real thing is like]. Especially when you end up on the floor because you are laughing too hard.

We are fans of hookah, so once that was going I broke out the tea. Tea and hookah, in my limited experience, can go very well together. [Tea and alcohol typically do not, so now may be a good time to add that I wasn’t imbibing that night as I was driving. This also likely catapults my previously mentioned behavior to a new level of ridiculousness. Or AWESOMENESS.]

Yes, yes, I often carry a tin or two of tea around with me. And a strainer. I like big butts [sorry, couldn’t resist – purses, I like big purses], so it’s really not too much of a stretch to throw a couple in there. A lot of my friends don’t drink loose tea, so it’s also allowed me to slowly introduce them to the wonderful world that most of us Steepsterians [Steepsterites?] live in.

If brewing tea in other people’s houses has taught me anything, it’s that it’s well, well worth it to try and control, as best you can, all four aspects of making tea. I cannot tell you how many times I, and I’m sure you, have run into information that advises you to control the time, temperature, amount of tea, and water type [I’ve gathered from the majority of people to use filtered, but not distilled]. This is easy enough to do at home, or perhaps work, but in other people’s homes it may not be so simple for any varying number of reasons. I know that when I started out making tea, I would pay attention to the time, then eventually the water temperature, but I didn’t think that filtered water would really make that huge of a difference. I tried it anyway, and it wasn’t until I made a cup at a friend’s house where I had to use tap water that I noticed there was a definite discrepancy in flavor. All I’m saying is: it’s important.

Tea is also something that I think is overwhelmingly more enjoyable when you have time to savor it and concentrate on the flavors. Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci kicking peoples faces in is not necessarily conducive to this kind of calming contemplation, but it is comforting to have a cup of something good in your hands when you’re watching something dark and kind of depressing.